Day Three - 26/07/2009 or ‘the day we followed Wiki Travel’s Bangkok in One Day Guide’.

Ok, we’re not going to update you on every single day here as it’s hard finding the time at the moment! Reckon we’ll end up giving an update once every month soon but as it’s our first week…

We did the classic today – Chao Phraya River Express boat to the Wat’s (temples). Managed to make it to On Nut station without much fuss on the bus, check out the speakers under the driver’s seat! These are used to blast out Thai country music (Luuk Thung) to the indifferent passengers.

On Nut to Ratchetewi on the Sky Train – first time we see the skyscrapers in daylight and it’s nice to get away from the suburban motorway. Then it’s a short walk to a pier tucked behind the main road’s bridge. You wouldn’t know it was there unless informed (thanks Wiki Travel…). We thought we’d made the wrong turn because there were workers everywhere and I think it was some kind of timber yard (more of a timber ‘lane’). After only five minutes a narrow boat appeared full of people crammed in – Thai’s looking bored and terrorized farangs.

The boat hasn’t even pulled up to the pier and people are jumping off it. As soon as they are off, we’re on and the boat conductor (who by the way is hanging off the outside of the boat) sidles her way to collect our fee – think it was something like 15 Baht. The river is disgusting but one thing I realized today was that I didn’t care. Bangkok is chaotic, dirty, smelly and buzzing with life – a few discarded bags of rubbish and crap floating on the water really doesn’t stand out. It was around one minute into the journey that I realized we made the right decision to come here.

We disembarked near Golden Mount and headed to Wat Rajanadda, passing Mahakan fort on the way. Effin’ touts all over the place trying to tell us stuff was closed and to come to their Buddha in the other direction. We told them we lived in Bangkok and they seemed to back off then. E started to really get into her new camera here as this was the next level of our journey so far. The buildings are intricate and grand, subtle and overpowering.

I loved the sleeping cats lying all over the place.

After E bravely fought her fear of heights and climbed the steps of Wat Rajanadda it was nearing noon and we hurried to a cab to see Wat Pho before it was too hot.

Which it was. The first twenty minutes we wandered around in the blazing sunshine as other touts kept telling tourists it was shut. We finally found the entrance and I had to sit down as my head was spinning from the heat. I’ve never suffered like this in the heat before but it must have reached 35 degrees today, with a ‘real feel’ of 40 in the humidity. It still didn’t dampen our awe of the place. E was so stunned by the buildings, the colours and the detail. She’s seen nothing remotely like this in her life before.

We skipped the reclining Buddha to find some food and shade (we live here now so can see that whenever…) near Tha Tien pier. More street food. We made friends with the lady who owns the stall and think we’ll make that a regular. They brought us fans as they saw my back drenching in sweat. Nice.

After this we hopped on the ferry that literally takes you across the mass expanse that is the Chao Phraya River to Wat Arun. This was a total rip off at 3 Baht (!).

When we hopped off the other side a chap was pulling a cat fish out of the brown water with his net. Wat Arun is a smaller complex but just as stunning although we didn’t really want to pay the fee to climb it. Seeing it was enough.

We hopped back on the ferry to return to the other side of the river and waited for the Chao Phraya River Express boat to take us to the Oriental Hotel for an expensive but well deserved drink.

The boat arrived half hour later and E see’s her first group of orange clad Thai monks standing in their designated area on the boat. This was a perfect spot until the monsoon storm hit. The river turned into a sea of waves and everyone squeezed to the middle of the boat to avoid the horizontal rain. This of course happened just before our stop. As we pulled up and prepared to get off the boat juddered violently and to stop myself tripping over I grabbed what I could. Unfortunately in this case I snatched at a monk’s bottom. That was embarrassing and quite probably illegal. On a lighter note the pier we had to run up was only five meters long, so we wouldn’t really get very wet. Unfortunately that was a serious miscalculation and it was akin to someone chucking a bucket of water over you.

We wait for the rain to ease and run round the corner to ‘the best hotel in the world’ for a cocktail and some shelter. You want to see good service? Come to the Bamboo Bar. We did feel, however, very out of place and I couldn’t help noticing the staff looking at my dirty converse boots. Snobbery rubs off.

On the way home E saw her first bead shops and nearly died. Note to self, come here again.